Easter Day

March 23, 2008

The Rev. Thomas William Blake

In one episode of the British television series The Vicar of Dibley, the Chair of the Parish Council asks the Vicar, “Have you thought about what you’re going to say in your Christmas sermon? After all,” he says, “it is your keynote speech of the year.” Suddenly the vicar feels the pressure, and she goes home and labors continuously, tossing draft after draft in the wastebasket, struggling to put together the perfect words for the occasion.

As a preacher I can identify with the whole scenario, except that I feel the Chair of the Parish Council got it wrong. Christmas isn’t the most important occasion on the church’s calendar; Easter is. At Easter we make the very central claim of the Christian faith: that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, that in this act God has defeated the powers of darkness and death, that an otherwise broken creation is being made whole again.

If any occasion should be designated my keynote speech of the year, it is today. St. Paul aptly articulates this point when, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, he writes, “if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and [our] faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.” (1 Corinthians 15: 14-15).

Those words, though not officially among our readings today, are the very heart of what I want to say to you on this keynote occasion for Christians throughout the world. If our proclamation has been in vain, then our faith has been in vain. Rest assured, however, that unlike the Vicar of Dibley in that fateful Christmas sermon, I won’t resort to using illustrations of the Spice Girls—no matter how much her congregation complimented her afterward for doing so.

We have just heard John’s version of the resurrection narrative. Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb—not the kind of underground tomb familiar to you and me. Instead, imagine a small cave-like enclosure into which a body was placed, and the entrance was then sealed with a very large stone. The stone could be rolled back as necessary to perform customary anointing rituals, but otherwise, the tomb was to be left alone.

When Mary sees that the stone sealing Jesus’ tomb has been rolled back, she instantly surmises that something is wrong. Jesus’ tomb has not been left alone. It is important to realize that, unlike you and me, Mary does not yet know the outcome of the story. Even as we walked the grueling journey of Holy Week, you and I knew where it was leading. We cannot hear the story of Jesus’ Passion except through the lens of Easter.

Mary was not visiting the tomb in search of good news. John’s account does not say why Mary was visiting the tomb, but Mark’s and Luke’s accounts fill in the blank. She was going to anoint the body of the deceased. It was her culture’s way of doing what every culture finds a way to do; we can’t ultimately stop death, but we have ways of making it more bearable; we find ways to honor the deceased and give them a proper resting place.

When my father died, we received family and friends at the funeral home, in the presence of his body. Then at his funeral in the church, a homily was given reminding us how he had lived his life confident in the hope of his faith. At the gravesite, military personnel led us in special ceremonial honoring his service in the military. None of these things ultimately could take away the sting of death, but they are our culture’s way of making it more bearable.

That’s what Mary was doing—going through the proper motions, keeping focused, doing something constructive, making the best out of an otherwise dismal situation. She had seen Jesus tortured and put to death. Now it was time for her to move on, to draw one chapter to a close and begin the next. But the tomb’s emptiness, the rock rolled back, the whole unexpected and shocking scenario understandably aggravated her.

It would be like going to visit the gravesite of one of our loved ones, only to arrive and find it desecrated. We would react in the same way—running to our family and friends and whoever else would listen and saying, “You won’t believe what I found; something has gone horribly wrong; come and see.” She dragged Peter and another disciple to the scene, but they soon left her alone again. And understandably, standing there alone, all she could do was weep.

There are times when that’s all any of us can do. I have wept, too, when loved ones died or life became otherwise difficult. What makes this story real and relevant to us is that any one of us could stand in Mary’s shoes; we probably have and we surely will. Humanity comes face to face with the brokenness of creation; we see how helpless, vulnerable, and mortal we really are, and we are terrified. Like Mary, all we can do is try to pick up the pieces and move on.

I started this sermon by saying that today, Easter, is the keynote occasion of the year: a time for great triumph and celebration of the resurrection. Somewhere along the way, however, my sermon began to sound a bit more like Good Friday: dismal and discouraging. My sermon, I believe, parallels the journeys of our lives: that the only way to Easter is through Good Friday; the only way to resurrection is through death. That’s the cold, dark reality of our existence.

Fortunately, here is the turning point in the Gospel narrative—the part, in fact, that makes it Gospel or good news. Mary has an encounter with Jesus without even knowing it. She supposes him to be the gardener, but it is the resurrected Jesus. Like Mary, we don’t always know when and where God is acting in our lives, but here is a story of assurance; God is acting, working to make creation whole again, even when we don’t recognize it.

“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” I stand in Mary’s shoes. I long to understand why there is chaos and death in the world. I want to pick up the broken pieces and move on as best I can. My soul is weighed down; I don’t know which way to turn; people try to reassure me by bringing God into the equation, but I just want answers—now!

But then there is that moment of revelation—that moment when we discover ourselves to be standing in God’s presence. God’s presence doesn’t depend on our seeing it or recognizing it or acting in one way or the other. God is just there—intervening to set things right, stirring up chaos until it turns into creation, stilling the storm that has been rocking the boat, shining light into places of deep darkness, turning death into resurrection.

Mary did not come to the tomb in search of good news, but nevertheless she found it there. “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher)…. And Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord.’”

That, my friends, is the Easter message. “I have seen the Lord.” In a world of darkness, it is a message conspicuously countercultural. Otherwise in the news we hear about wars and conflicts and diseases and oppression and death. This list could go endlessly on. We walk to the tomb hoping to pick up the pieces and move on as best we can, only to find the walls seemingly closing in around us. .

And then we come face to face with God and our whole perspective shifts. “I have seen the Lord.” This is news to be shared. This is news that the world longs to hear—good news! And we are privileged to be witnesses of this good news. People laugh and people jeer and people call us naïve, but let them. God gives us reason to hope. God shows us glimpses of his new kingdom reigning in. Even death is being defeated. “I have seen the Lord.”

A recent Pew research study underscored what we have known for several decades now: membership within mainline Protestantism, including the Episcopal Church, is in decline. Some have suggested that our message has become too bland—too much like the rest of the world. But maybe that’s the problem. Why come to church if it simply offers what we already have?

The Easter message on the other hand, if we embrace it, sets us apart. Some say, “The world is going to hell in a hand basket,” but we say “God is at work in the world, intervening, restoring us to wholeness.” Some say that death is the end, but we say God is overturning the powers of death and destruction. We are a resurrection people.

Today is our keynote occasion. Our foundation is exposed for what it truly is: not folly, but a radical message of hope and good news. I put my trust in that hope. We share in that hope. The world longs for that hope. And so may God grant us the courage like Mary to be witnesses, to boldly and enthusiastically proclaim for all to hear: “I have seen the Lord.”

Amen.